Just a matter of time
by Himeneka
Summary: Kakashi is confused. (Short time-travel oneshot)


The light tap at his window woke Kakashi easily - neither the first of its kind, nor, in all likeliness, the last. But when he went to open after putting his usual mask on, instead of the expected fellow ANBU, or even jounin, a kid barely three years of age was looking at him with something akin to desperation. What the ever loving fuck was Naruto doing here in the dead of night?

While mentally preparing a nicely scathing, scorching dressing down on whichever caretaker let his sensei's son go missing at this hour, Kakashi quickly let the kid enter, wondering how the child, barely more than a toddler, managed to make it, first, past his ANBU babysitter, and second, to his fourth story window. Naruto slipped inside with a smooth efficiency that belied his age, and looked at him with wide eyes.

"Thank fuck you're a light sleeper, Kakashi - I wanted to wait, but just, no, I **can't**. Orphanage is out for me, and I have no idea how I'm supposed to deal with this. Could you believe there's compulsory nap time? No ramen for breakfast? I haven't even found any orange pajama, it's all grey, brown, and slate blue, and if I have to smile to one of those brainless caretakers one more time, I'm going to got nuts. Nutter. Is that a word? Should be a word. Please, please help?"

Out of all the babble, Kakashi noticed several things. Despite his inexperience in children, for example, he thought that kids Naruto's age seldom used "compulsory" in everyday sentences. And, how did he know Kakashi's name and location? There was something very, very wrong going here. He lifted a hand, and answered in his most soothing tone, "How about I make us a nice cup of tea, and you tell me exactly what is the pro blem? This way I'll be able to help."

Naruto took a deep breath, and released it while pinching his nose, just between his eyes. The gesture seemed absurdly unchildish to Kakashi.

"Ok, right. You'll need it anyway, I'm sorry, news are… uhh… I shouldn't have barged in like that, it's just, I thought I would wait a few more years, but I really can't stand it anymore. Maybe it will be better this way."

Now thoroughly awake, Kakashi carefully hid his own nascent panic and prepared the tea. He sat at the low table, noting Naruto was in perfect seiza and patiently waiting for him. The child was **three**. What could happen in the life of a kid that age that would be worthy of such a reaction? The inescapable answer was chilling him. Surely the Kyuubi couldn't have escaped his teacher's seal? Did any of his chakra leak out?

Naruto talked suddenly. "Ok, hum, I see you worry, and it wasn't my intention, so please stay calm, I promise it's … well, ok, bad, but not _that_ bad. Nobody's dead recently that you care about, with any luck none will die soon, and I'm not insane. Yet."

He looked down at his tea with a sigh, and went on, "Here is my problem. Due to dire circumstances, I've been forced to go back in time into my younger body. I look three, but I'm over twenty. There's been a war, like, the mother of all wars, lots of destruction, you've seen a war I'm not gonna draw you a picture. We got an opportunity to jump back in time, we took it - we were losing that war, and preventing it from happening in the first place seemed like the only solution."

He lifted his eyes, and they seemed so tired. Kakashi gripped his tea cup a bit tighter in the face of that stare, but didn't interrupt.

"You're familiar with space-time jutsus, Kakashi, after all you were my dad's student, and he was famous for Hiraishin. Among other things. Can you believe me?"

Kakashi wanted to take a few sips of his cup to mask his discomfort, but before he could hesitate, Naruto seemed to guess the problem, and looked away.

"Oh, right. Your mask. Go ahead, I won't pry."

Thrown by the comment, Kakashi nevertheless made use of the opportunity, and gulped his tea while mulling over Naruto's speech so far. Kakashi himself was an acknowledged genius, but he was still five when he graduated, not three. If that was Naruto, and if Naruto could demonstrate knowledge far past his possible current capabilities - and he already knew who was his father…

"You said you're from the future, and you obviously know things about me. I'm going to assume you've learned those things from my alternate future self. How would you convince him?" He wished he could have made the demand challenging, but he was afraid it was coming across as almost pitiful.

Naruto grinned, a bit wickedly, then made a hand sign, created two Kage bunshins, and henged them. One into a cheerfully smiling twenty year old man, startlingly similar to the Yondaime, with distinctive whisker marks, and the other into… a thirty-something version of Kakashi. Unmasked, a bit more scarred, waving at him with a grin, and Mangekyou eye open. In _Hokage garb_. Kakashi nearly choked.

The adult version of Naruto laughed, and apologized in a much deeper voice than his kid version, "Sorry, couldn't resist. It's not even lying, you know - you were Acting Rokudaime Hokage by the time we time-jumped."

The … _not_ -kid dispelled his clones, and waited for Kakashi to compose himself a bit. It wasn't easy - seeing himself at twice his current age, as Hokage no less, was deeply disconcerting, but not a tenth as much as the realization that his guest was a **time-traveler.** Holy _shit_. He needed something a lot stronger than tea, there.

After a few moments spent bent slightly backward on his hands, staring at the ceiling, he exhaled, bent back upright, still sitting cross-legged, and stared at Naruto instead. Who was looking at him with a bit of sympathy, one elbow on the table and a cheek cupped in his hand. He added offhandedly, "Just to be thorough, you can use the eye, you know. Kurama's chakra is distinctive enough to identify me."

Kakashi did just that, and opened his Sharingan. The Kyuubi's chakra was indeed unmistakable, dormant in his guest, but the use of a name suggested Naruto didn't just know he was a Jinchuuriki - he knew much more about his beast than Kakashi himself. Kakashi gave up on any lingering chance - lingering hope, if he was completely honest - that this was a genjutsu or any kind of enemy trap. This was definitely Naruto, who could definitely do things no three-year-old anywhere ever did. You knew you were screwed when time-travel was beginning to look like the most logical explanation.

Kakashi closed his Sharingan, and after a deep sigh, and a forlorn look at the sake bottle visible on his counter, turned resolutely toward Naruto, and asked in all seriousness, "What can I do?"

Naruto had an exasperated look. "I don't know! That's why I came here! I thought I could just, you know, live, like the last time plus whichever changes we added, but look!"

He gestured at his own body - his own so very childish body, so frail and soft, and his hand clearly denoted impatience.

"I look like a fucking toddler, I'm treated like garbage, I have the knowledge of a twenty-year-old with the temper and concentration of a three-year-old, if I act suspicious everyone will accuse Kyuubi and if I try to act my physical age, I'll be going mad. I know, **I've tried** , that's why I'm here, I've been back in time for all of six weeks and I can't stand it anymore. Two more weeks, tops, before I strangle one of those orphanage ladies, less before i escape to taste anything but that sludge they're trying to pass as breakfast. What CAN I do?"

Naruto's distress was all too obvious, and Kakashi tried to imagine himself in his place. He shuddered at the thought, and hastily moved on.

"You said you wanted to prevent a war?..."

"Oh." Naruto seemed almost distracted. "Already taken care of, don't worry."

Kakashi stared. Naruto scratched his nose, a bit defensive. "What? I've literally nothing else to do, I've just shown you I can make shadow clones - my limit's over a hundred, that i can sustain indefinitely - and henge them. 'T wasn't even really hard, honest. Just had to know exactly what to do, and I've had months to plan it, with future version of you. Plus, I'm not alone - two other Jinchuuriki came back in time with me, one of them is the brother of the current Raikage, and he's the only adult one. He took care of the international aspect of things."

"... Right," answered Kakashi faintly. International aspect. In Kumo. He **definitely** didn't want to know more about the now-avoided war. Not this night. He was already way past his usual limit of weirdness for the day, and it wasn't even four in the morning.

He kept staring at Naruto while thinking about his situation. The man was actually older than him, and had lived through a war. Chances were he would be a treasure of information and fighting knowledge. In a barely-three-year-old body. _Awkward_ didn't even _begin_ to describe his situation.

Knowing he might regret it, he still couldn't stop himself from asking another question.

"Why so early? The war was sowed so soon?" The idea was disquieting - the third war was only a few years old.

Naruto shrugged without looking at him. "Later would have worked, too, and might have been easier, but… Hyuuga Hizashi would have been dead last week if not for that time-travel, and I was a friend of his son, Neji." He looked Kakashi in the eye, with such an expression of loss, Kakashi shivered. Current Neji never even met Naruto, and may never know what he owed him, but Naruto had done it anyway, for a friend he lost to an erased timeline.

Damn, Naruto had lost **everything** , to protect **everyone** , and they didn't even know it. His father would be proud, but his mother would berate all those who made it necessary in the first place. And that line of thought made his own choice obvious.

"I'll petition the council to adopt you." Faced with Naruto's abrupt attention, round-eyed surprise on his face, he continued, a bit uncomfortably, "That is, if you want?"

"Yes!" There was a beaming smile on Naruto's face, a bit watery on the edges maybe, but to Kakashi's covert relief, no attempt to hug him. "Thank you, I can't believe it, it's so perfect, yes!"

"Maa, no need to thank me." He felt obscurely warmed by Naruto's reaction, so overwhelmingly positive. "I think the council will agree, it's actually quite lucky, with Councillor Shimura's death last month, they…" He couldn't finish his sentence at the twinge of … something… on Naruto's face. He stared, and asked with a strangled voice, "... Shimura Danzo?"

Naruto grumbled, not quite under his breath, "He really, really had it coming, y'know."

Kakashi had some difficulties continuing after **that** , but he couldn't pretend he'd mourned the man anyway. He would ask how Naruto had managed to arrange the death of an experienced and paranoid shinobi of Shimura's caliber in such a way that _no one_ had suspected foul play, but _later_.

"... Right. As I was saying, I'll petition the council, and I think they'll agree," he looked at Naruto seriously. "It may help, but even then, it won't be a perfect solution, you know. You'll always be out of phase with your body, you'll still have years of apparent childhood, then puberty, to survive… It won't be easy, and I'm not exactly dad material."

Naruto returned his gaze with just as much seriousness. "I know, but I'm not exactly normal kid material, either, and anything would be better than right now," he had a little smile. "If anything, you'll never have to give me The Talk… you'll have it easier than most dads, you know."

Kakashi smiled at that, and relaxed a bit. He asked curiously, "Who gave you the Talk, as you say, in your previous timeline?"

Naruto grinned, "Your favorite author."

Kakashi's eye inadvertently went to his library, and he had a sudden laugh. He tried to stop, but in the face of Naruto's own amusement, he couldn't stop his giggles. There might have been a bit of hysteria in them - this night had been crazy, but it felt good to laugh.


End file.
